1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone apparatus whose main body is held to a user's ear so that a user listens to a voice output from the telephone apparatus, and more particularly, to the structure of a telephone apparatus enabling a user to listen to a clear voice when the user holds the telephone apparatus to a user's earlobe.
2. Description of the Related Art
A reduction in the size or weight of telephone apparatuses having good portability, particularly, a remote phone of a cordless telephone apparatus, a cellular phone, and a PHS (personal handy phone system) has made rapid progress.
JP-A-2002-64609 discloses a telephone apparatus for enabling a user to listen to only the voice output from a speaker of a cellular phone. The telephone apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2002-64609 includes a voice pipe inserted into the earhole as a receiver.
A main body of the telephone apparatus is provided with a transmitter for inputting a voice and a receiver for enabling a user to listen to the voice. A speaker for generating a voice is used as the receiver. The transmitter is provided at the lower part of the main body of the telephone apparatus, that is, at a position corresponding to a uses mouth, and the receiver is provided at the upper part of the main body of the telephone apparatus, that is, at a position corresponding to a user's ear, so that the user can hold the telephone apparatus to a user's face and easily speak over the telephone apparatus. In addition, for example, an operating unit and a display unit are provided between the receiver and the transmitter. The display unit is a display panel, such as a liquid crystal display device, that displays various information items, such as a menu and operational information. The operating unit is composed of numerical keys for inputting a telephone number and functional keys for inputting a menu of the telephone apparatus. The operating unit and the display unit are sequentially arranged above the transmitter such that the user can operate the operating unit while viewing the display unit. For the purpose of convenience of explanation, it is considered that the receiver that is held to a user's ear is arranged at the upper part of the telephone apparatus and the transmitter is arranged at the lower part of the telephone apparatus. This structure is practically used in the telephone apparatus.
In order to reduce the size of the main body of the telephone apparatus, the gap among the transmitter, the operating unit, the display unit, and the receiver, the distance from the bottom of the main body to the transmitter, and the distance from the top of the main body to the receiver are getting smaller. It made efforts to secure the space in the front surface of the main body of the telephone apparatus by arranging the receiver closer to the upper end of the main body of the telephone apparatus.
In the case in which the receiver is arranged closer to the upper end of the main body of the telephone apparatus, when the user holds the main body of the telephone apparatus to a user's ear to listen to a voice, the upper part of the front surface of the main body of the telephone apparatus is put to the entire earlobe of the user, which causes the receiver to be located at a position higher than the earhole, resulting in the positional deviation between the receiver and the earhole of the user. This is because holding the upper part of the front surface of the main body of the telephone apparatus to the entire earlobe is more stable than holding the upper end of the main body of the telephone apparatus to the earhole.
When the user unconsciously holds the main body of the telephone apparatus to a user's ear, the user tends to hold the receiver at a position higher than the earhole. Therefore, the receiver arranged closer to the top of the main body of the telephone apparatus is positioned at the earlobe that is higher than the earhole. That is, a tone hole of the main body of the telephone apparatus that transmits a sound output from a speaker for generating a voice deviates from the earhole, which makes it difficult for the user to listen to the voice.
In this case, the user strongly presses the main body of the telephone apparatus against the user's ear in order to listen to a clear voice, which causes the tone hole to closely contact with the earlobe, making it more difficult for the user to listen to the voice.